An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). The organisation’s processes are documented. The documentation assumes you’re Narelle.
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Transcript:
Where does our operational knowledge live?
It’s documented. We have process documents.
Narelle wrote them.
They assume you already know what Narelle knows.
So they’re not very useful to anyone who isn’t Narelle.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). A member calls with a question about their account. There’s a process for that. Sort of.
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Transcript:
What happens when a member calls with a question about their account?
We put them through to Narelle.
We used to have a process for when Narelle wasn’t available.
We don’t use that process anymore.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). The member onboarding process is documented. There’s just one small problem with the documentation.
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Transcript:
How do we onboard new members?
We have a process. It’s documented.
Narelle documented it.
Only Narelle can read it.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary is asked to estimate how many things Narelle does. They mapped it once. It was confronting.
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Transcript:
How many things would be on that list? If we listed everything Narelle does?
I… don’t know.
More than her job description.
We mapped it once. As part of a process review.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Narelle audits the membership data every January. She finds things. Nobody asks what.
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Transcript:
Have we ever audited the membership data?
Narelle audits it every January. She finds things.
We don’t ask what she finds.
She fixes them.
The data is very clean.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary is asked whether they’ve ever counted their manual processes. The series finale.
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Transcript:
Have we ever actually counted how many manual processes the team runs?
No.
Should we?
I feel like we should.
I feel like the number would be upsetting.
I also feel like not knowing is worse.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary explains how the board membership report gets produced. It involves a system, two spreadsheets, and Narelle.
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Transcript:
The board membership report. How do we produce that.
Narelle runs it on the Thursday before the meeting. She exports something from the system, cross-references it with the spreadsheet, checks it against another spreadsheet, and sends it through.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary walks through the contingency plan for Narelle leaving. There are two options. One is harder than the other.
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Transcript:
If Narelle did leave — what’s the plan?
Okay so. We’d need to document everything she knows. Which would take… a while. We’d need someone who understands the membership system AND the spreadsheet AND the workarounds AND the history of why the workarounds exist.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Membership renewals involve a system export, a spreadsheet cross-reference, manual additions, manual removals, and Narelle.
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Transcript:
Membership renewals. How do we handle those.
Narelle runs the renewals in March. She exports the list, checks it against her spreadsheet, removes anyone who shouldn’t get one, adds anyone the system missed, and sends them out.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary describes the spreadsheet. It has 47 tabs. The colour coding makes perfect sense — to Narelle.
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Transcript:
Can I describe the spreadsheet?
It has 47 tabs. Some of them are colour coded. Narelle knows what the colours mean. We asked her to document it once.
She said she would. That was 2019.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). The membership system handles most things. Narelle handles the edge cases. There are a lot of edge cases.
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Transcript:
Does the membership system do what we need it to do?
It does most things. There are a few edge cases.
Narelle handles the edge cases.
There are quite a few edge cases.
An interview with Gary Ashworth-Phillips, CEO of the Federation of Australian Knowledge Enterprises (FAKE). Gary lists everything that would have to change to not need a Narelle. Apparently, it’s possible.
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Transcript:
What would have to be true for us to not need a Narelle?
The system would have to actually do what it’s supposed to do.
The data would have to be clean without someone manually cleaning it.